The Weeknd, aka Abel Makkonen Tesfaye at Cannes Film Festival 2023. Rocco Spaziani/Archivio Spaziani/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
The Weeknd has pledged another $2 million from his XO Humanitarian Fund to the World Food Programme’s humanitarian response efforts in war-torn Gaza.
According to a statement released on Monday (April 29), the money from the artist who now goes by his real name, Abel Tesfaye, will be used to provide more than 1,500 metric tons of fortified wheat flour, which can be used to make more than 18 million loaves of bread to feed more than 157,000 Palestinians for a month.
Tesfaye, a United Nations World Food Programme Goodwill Ambassador, previously donated $2.5 million — the equivalent of four million emergency meals — to the WFP’s Gaza response in December 2023. That initial pledge provided 820 metric tons of food parcels to more than 173,000 Palestinians for two weeks, according to a statement. The singer is also asking his fans to donate to WFP’s efforts in Gaza, where experts say that more than one million displaced Palestinians face dire food shortages six months into Israel’s punishing response to Hamas’ deadly attack in which the terrorist group murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250 men, women, children and elderly citizens.
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“We are very grateful for Abel’s continued support as WFP works to respond to the urgent hunger crisis in Gaza,” Barron Segar, WFP USA president/CEO said in a statement. “Hunger is a human-made problem, and as such, it is solvable. We have enough food in this world to feed everyone; all we need is the funding and safe access to make it happen. Thanks to Abel’s designation, families and children will receive the food they so desperately need.”
To date, Tesfaye, his partners and fans have raised more than $6.5 million for the Fund, with the singer directing $4.5 million toward Gaza relief.
The UN reported last week that after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment WFP’s Geneva office director said, “People cannot meet even the most basic, food needs. They have exhausted all coping strategies, like eating animal fodder, begging, selling off their belongings to buy food. They are most of the time destitute and clearly some of them are dying of hunger.”
Experts said that the dire situation in Gaza is verging on a famine, with an estimated 30% of children under two now described as acutely malnourished or wasted and 70% of the population in the north facing “catastrophic” hunger.
